Record February sales for JLR in USA
There was some better news for luxury car maker Jaguar Land Rover as it enjoyed a record February sales month in the United States.
Over the month 11,616 cars were sold – up 29 per cent on February last year.
Jaguar brand sales were up 59 per cent to 3,645 and Land Rover by 19 per cent to 8,151.
“We are pleased to have achieved our best February retail month ever for Jaguar Land Rover in the U.S,” said Joe Eberhardt, president and chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover North America.
“This result was driven by the continued sales momentum of the Discovery Sport, Range Rover Sport, Jaguar XE and F-PACE," he added.
Land Rover Discovery achieved its best ever retail month since March 2017 with 1,039 units sold, up 25 per cent from 829 in February 2018 and the Discovery Sport sold 1,283 units, up 86 per cent over last year. The Range Rover Sport had its best February, up 18 per cent from a previous best of 1,827 units in February 2015.
The award winning Jaguar F-PACE saw 1,345 sales, up 34 per cent for the year.
In January worldwide car sales for JLR had dipped by 10.9 per cent with continuing falling sales in China a major factor. Total sales for the luxury car group fell from 49,066 in January 2018 to 43,733.
JLR, which has its engine manufacturing centre at the i54 to the north of Wolverhampton, and car plants at Solihull, Castle Bromwich and Halewood in Merseyside, reported a £273 million pre-tax loss for the last three months of 2018.
The company announced in January that it would reduce its global workforce by 4,500 people. This is expected to result in a one-time exceptional redundancy cost of about £200m.
Given the falling for its vehicles JLR has decided that capital investment should be adjusted down, resulting in a non-cash £3.1 billion pre-tax exceptional charge and an overall pre-tax loss of £3.4bn for the quarter.
